UA Baja Racing Team Support Fund

Bama Racing is a part of the Society of Automotive Engineers’ Mini Baja racing series. This competition requires grit; the overall premise is that each team is limited to a 10-horsepower engine and must design a vehicle that can excel in mobility, power, and acceleration, beat tough off-road courses, and go the furthest in the main event: a 4-hour endurance race designed to test even the strongest designs. It mimics the Baja 1000 race, although conditions vary with competition location each year.  

Bama Racing competes on a yearly basis; throughout the semester students design, build, and test the car, and in mid-May we travel to compete against teams from around the world. 

This past competition we placed 34^th of 82 teams. Although we are proud of our accomplishment, we plan to score much higher in the coming years. Our team is up-and-coming; although the team has existed for years, we only recently started competing yearly and modernizing our designs and production methods.

We seek to both make our team more competitive and enrich our members. Our current focus is training members on computer aided production methods, such as CNC mills and lathes, water jet cutting, and plasma jet cutting. Three years ago, our team first designed custom uprights to optimize steering and suspension capabilities; now it is a yearly process. We’ve also entered the realm of custom machinery and tools. A key part of our car is the frame, which we fabricate ourselves. We had been improperly notching tubes because we didn’t have the proper tools; this led to high error in fabrication and increased difficulty. So, we designed a tool, superior and cheaper than other options on the market, to properly notch tubes, and have experienced a vast increase in precision because of it. 

Any donation will help our team greatly. Our primary cost year-to-year is materials and purchased parts. As we look to modernize the materials we use and increase the complexity of our designs, this cost will only increase. Our second main cost is tools and equipment; we plan to design more custom tools in the future, need to acquire new tooling for existing machines, and have a variety of other consumables that we need on a regular basis. Aside from direct needs, we also want to expand our advertising and media presence, to make our team more visible while being more professional.                              

In my years of experience in competitive sports and teams, I have not met a group as passionate as Bama Racing. We hope you will consider donating.